Wind and Solar Energy: Renewable Energy to Create
Thousands of New Jobs

Nov 26, 2007 - Business Wire

Rhone Resch, President of the Solar Energy Industries
Association, and Randy Swisher, President of the American
Wind Energy Association, guests at separate Executive
News Roundtables sponsored by Energy Policy TV, said
the renewable energy industries will be large creators
of new jobs in the U.S. in the coming years. Videos
of their appearances are available at no cost on Energy
Policy TV's Solar and Wind Channels, respectively.

The solar industry's Resch told Energy Policy TV
that 55,000 new jobs could be created if the Energy
Bill passes with the hoped-for eight-year extension
of tax credits. He said that even more jobs could
be created if solar continues to grow at its current
rate, forecasting as many as 150,000 to 200,000 new
jobs over the next decade in solar manufacturing,
in efficiency and other ancillary roles and in the
supply chain.

Resch said that the International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers (IBEW) is considering retraining
its members so they can work in the solar industry.
Currently, whole communities of solar homes are being
built in California, the leading solar energy state
after New Jersey. "Silicon Valley," he said, "is being
renamed as 'Solar Valley' (because) those companies
are making the transition over to solar as the next
great high-tech growth industry and we have an opportunity
to keep that industry here in the United States."

The wind association's Swisher said that governors
and other state officials recognize the job potential
for wind energy, and they are actively courting manufacturers
and others in the supply chain to capture those activities.

Swisher said that installed wind capacity will grow
by at least 50 percent this year and perhaps substantially
more with about 6,000 megawatts of capacity currently
under construction. He said wind "has been the second-largest
contributor (of) new installed capacity behind gas
for the last three years." He also said that future
turbines are likely to produce more power, citing
one manufacturer that is working on a 7.5 megawatt
machine and noting that much of the investment in
the industry is driving innovation "towards the scaling
up process."

Swisher also cited Renewable Portfolio Standards
(RPS) as an important driver of growth for the industry,
"not just in terms of megawatts themselves," but as
a "tremendous educational tool." Utilities in Texas,
for example over-complied with the wind mandates because
it was cost-effective to do so and those lessons have
"spilled over" to states that do not have RPS.

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